I wasn't a course book hater, but for years I didn't use coursebooks for 2 reasons. Firstly, I liked to be in control of the syllabus, including the grammar and vocab input. Secondly, I was put off by my brief experiences of using such books because I felt too much time was wasted on having to explain stuff (Who is Richard Branson? Why is this Punch cartoon funny? What is a TV dinner? etc, etc) I know that in some contexts, such discussions can be interesting and enriching, but for busy business students with ever-diminishing time available for lessons it wasn't suitable.

One day I was preparing a lesson on explaining statistics and graphs and I wanted an example of a graph. I picked up a copy of Business Goals and found an excellent unit on this subject, using exactly the vocab that I had in mind. I used the Unit as the lesson and it worked really well. To cut a long story short, I use the Business Goals series all the time now and the results are very good.

I gave up using books ten or fifteen years ago. There was always something I didn't like, and things I had to supplement. After supplementing for so long, I had a core group of material. Now, in the summer, I plan the next fall's class by plotting out what I'm going to do on a calendar I make in Word.

For example, this semester, for the first time, I have a low level CALL class for the first time. It meets in the Computer lab on Monday and Tuesday, and in the classroom on Wed, Thur, and Friday. I connect the two sections somewhat, but not completely, so I started with the classroom section. I got a copy of the master plan for our college, and figured out what grammar I was supposed to teach, and divided it into the 18 week semester. Then I put in what activities I wanted. I use story dictations a lot (first dictating words, then sentences, then showing how people speak etc.). So I put a dictation on every Tuesday. After I did this (using things like conversations, interviews, etc.) I went back and wrote the material.

In the beginning of my teaching career, I prepared material every night. That took an incredible amount of time because I had to review in my mind where I was and where I was going before I could prepare. Then I started preparing a week at a time. Now I do a semester at a time. That isn't to say I follow my schedule exactly. In fact, I make a lot of changes as I go along, but the bulk of the material is prepared before the class starts.

I could really do with some help planning my curriculum. I have classes of mixed ability children (they are expats) ranging from very little English to fluent! I have to plan my own (speaking/listening)curriculum from scratch as there are no course books. What I am looking for to get me started is a range of themes that will appeal to children aged 8-11. I want to try to find a different range of subjects for each grade level. That way I (or the next teacher) do not have to start again with a new curriculum. I plan to differentiate activities within each class to suit varying abilities - a lot of work I know, but I only see each class once a week so it should be manageable. I would be eternally grateful for any ideas on themes that I can plan maybe half a term's work round. So far, I have:
families,hobbies, friends, homes, travel, food, animals, feelings, the future, - in other words, all rather dull! Anyone got any nice juicy topics that would get the children motivated to talk?!!!

I have to plan my own (speaking/listening)curriculum from scratch as there are no course books.

I think it's fair to plan a speaking curriculum form scratch, but for listening they should provide you with some CDs.

Anyway, how about topics like: mysteries of the world (UFOs, ghosts), football and other sports, my favorite things, a day in the life of..., songs (sing and discuss the words, act out the story...), games (you could do up a discussion board game where kids have to hop up and down or do something silly if they land on a particular space)

There is no such thing as a perfect textbook. One is dated, another spends way too much time on grammar and writing, and yet a third... well, let 's just say some are downright painful to use. I'm forever adding supplemental material, even to the textbooks that I really like.

If you've been teaching for a long time, and are very organized (i.e., you save all your worksheets and lesson plans), then I agree with Lorikeet; just go ahead and put your own syllabus together. I will say, though, that a (good) textbook does add structure, even if you may need to add some speaking activities, worksheets, etc.

Think of the syllabus like a lesson. In a lesson, the work at the end is possible because of the activities that were built on the initial target language. If you don't teach the target language effectively, or don't build activity on activity, then the lesson fails because the students can't walk away using the language. The same holds true with a syllabus: if you don't cover grammar points or vocabulary that appears later on (or you don't present them in a logical order), then you end up back-pedaling. Students get confused, and you end up taking time away from what you intended to cover.